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. 2022 Jun 27;77(12):2202–2211. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbac086

Table 2.

Actor and Partner Effects of Loneliness on Memory and Verbal Fluency

Cognitive task Memory Verbal fluency
Males Females Males Females
B SE β B SE β B SE β B SE β
Unadjusted
Intercept 10.465** 0.174 11.276** 0.205 22.794** 0.681 23.049** 0.763
Loneliness
Actor loneliness −0.998** 0.080 −0.11 −0.986** 0.062 −12 −1.866** 0.227 −0.09 −1.798** 0.176 −0.10
Partner loneliness −0.394** 0.072 −0.05 −0.386** 0.094 −0.04 −0.864** 0.177 −0.05 −0.884** 0.189 −0.04
Estimate variance
Residual 11.118** 0.100 11.576** 0.104 47.835** 0.431 46.326** 0.418
Intercept 0.589** 0.199 0.905** 0.283 11.750** 3.466 15.151** 4.364
Actor slope 0.058 0.039 0.014 0.024 0.846* 0.398 0.431* 0.221
Partner slope 0.047 0.035 0.115* 0.059 0.430 0.226 0.449 0.278
Adjusted
Intercept 15.718** 0.221 15.337** 0.234 29.738** 0.707 28.005** 0.760
Loneliness
Actor loneliness −0.712** 0.068 −0.08 −0.699** 0.054 −0.08 −1.413** 0.211 −0.07 −1.271** 0.162 −0.07
Partner loneliness −0.188** 0.061 −0.02 −0.151 0.077 −0.02 −0.494** 0.153 −0.03 −0.497** 0.166 −0.02
Covariates
Actor age −0.119** 0.002 −0.32 −0.110** 0.002 −0.28 −0.176** 0.005 −0.21 −0.166** 0.005 0.20
Actor education 0.495** 0.017 0.21 0.630** 0.018 0.25 0.796** 0.037 0.15 1.339** 0.037 0.25
Partner education 0.212** 0.017 0.09 0.176** 0.017 0.07 0.502** 0.038 0.09 0.220** 0.035 0.04
Household size −0.198** 0.046 −0.06 −0.176** 0.048 −0.05 −0.192 0.100 −0.02 −0.225* 0.098 −0.03
Estimate variance
Residual 8.983** 0.081 9.262** 0.083 42.152** 0.380 39.187** 0.353
Intercept 0.325** 0.112 0.522** 0.166 8.968** 2.664 11.797** 3.411
Actor slope 0.033 0.026 0.007 0.019 0.721* 0.338 0.369* 0.176
Partner slope 0.027 0.024 0.063 0.038 0.267 0.160 0.317 0.209

Notes: N = 24,689 couples (49,378 individuals). Unadjusted reports the models without covariates; Adjusted reports the models with basic covariates. Because we did not test cross-level interactions, individual-level variables were not centered. SPSS produces only unstandardized coefficients in multilevel modeling. Therefore, we calculated standardized coefficients using the formula: β standardized = (B unstandardized × standard deviation explanatory variable)/standard deviation outcome variable; βs are reported for actor and partner effects of loneliness and covariates. SE = standard error.

* p ≤ .05; **p ≤ .01.